impious ingrate, his eldest daughter, who requires him, with an air of impudence and maddening rudeness to dismiss half his train, his flexible and speaking countenance assumed an expression of withering indignation, and his flaming eyes seemed to have darted on his daughter, electric fire as he bursted out in the raging ebullition

"Darkness and Devils!

Saddle my horses, call my train together-
Degen'rate bastard, I'll not trouble thee."

Can any dispassionate critic, apart from the babbling and pur-blind Connoisseurs of the Morning Courier, say that Mr. Forrest irradiated the passage with a single gleam of force or feeling? No, here he ranted and prosed, and the words of Shakespeare fell as cold from his lips, as dew drops from the autumnal rose. Again, as the good old king is agonizing amidst all his indignities and woes, he informs Regan, whom he believes to be incapable of such base ingratitude and filial impiety as her sister, of his wrongs; he breaks out in the following pathetic supplication, which as uttered by Kean, would have charmed the demon of friged cruelty into an angel of pity.—

-Beloved Regan,

Thy sister'e naught.-O Regan! she hath tied
Sharp tooth'd unkindness like a vulture, here.
Dear daughter-

-On my knees I beg

That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed and food."

This scene, in Mr. Forrest's representation, had not a vein of tenderness, or a streak of imploring sorrow to excite the feelings, or to enlist compassion. When the two daughters endeavoured, by sophistical arguments, to persuade him to lessen the number of his knights, his upbraiding, and poignant answer was certainly given by Mr. Forrest, with more touching and emphatic effect, than any line which we ever heard him enunciate

I gave you all!"

"I g

But in pronouncing the terrible curse his powers failed, and his inability to express the quick succession of the conflicting passions raging in Lear's breast, was manifest. What a dreadful and awful sensation did Kean's delivery of this blasting execration produce in the minds of the audience! Here he never gave us rant for energy, or pompous unnatural inflation, for impassioned declamation. In this curse he inimitably blended rage, and all the attributes of revenge and scorn; and his indignant imprecation seemed to breathe the appalling voice of these personified passions. Lear's mad scene, in which he was cold and tricksome, is too much for Mr. Forrest's mastery; there he cannot "call spirits from the vasty deep;" in this he shows us that his strength is not adequate to the task of bending the stubborn bow of Ulysses; though, to do him justice, in one or two points, he hit off good miniature imitations of Kean's magic picgoes ture. Upon the whole, Mr. Forrest has a fair conception of the part, and he through it with some credit; and we cannot but commend the comparative felicity of the effort, while we must decidedly censure his failure in Hamlet; a part which, if he values his own fame, he should never more attempt, because nature has not given him the re quisites to shine in it.

We really acknowledge, that Mr. Forrest has rare and radiant capabilities; but unfortunately for himself, editorial adulation has damped the latent fires of his genius, and thus he has been seduced into deep water, through which great genius and matured judgment can alone wade. Let Mr. Forrest go through the ordeal of Drury Lane, and he will then acknowledge the truth and justice of the admonitory criticisms of the IRISH SHIELD, and that they were the legitimate offspring of honest candour, and the dictates of impartial judgement, and uninfluenced opinion. We are no actors, we never wore the "tinsel buskin," or the waving plume of the tragic muse, so that no one is warranted to attribute to us the unworthy motives, of prejudice or envy, thereforewe can derive no benefit from depreciating the positive or negative merits of Mr. Forrest,

"What is Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba?'

Messrs Barry, Simpson, Placide and Richings sustained their respective parts with vigour and effect. And the Mesdames Hilson, Wallack and Sharpe, brought feeling and spirit into their performances, and succeeded in painting some scenes, with vivid touches of interest, and warm tints of passion.

THE UNITED STATES GAZETTE.

We received, only on Saturday morning, the 28th of November, just as our last form was going to press, from some "damned good natured friend," (as Sir Fretful has it) in Philadelphia, the respectable paper, whose name gives title to this brief article; for brief time and space compel us to make it. The learned and candid editor, in his paper of the 12th of November, in bold, broad, and direct terms, charges us with having yielded to the dictates of national prejudice and partiality, in writing, in the last number, the critique on MR. FORREST's performance of Hamlet. Now, while far from denying our fallibility of judgment and discrimination in that critical estimate, we declare most solemnly, that in criticising on Mr. Forrest's personation, as we did, we only gave an adequate expression to our honest and UNINFLUENCED OPINION, and that neither prejadice nor partiality swayed, or gave a tinge or a tone to the sentiments in which it was conveyed. This charge we, therefore, must rebut with a positive and unqualified denial of its justice. Had either Quin, Barry, Mossop or Cooke, who were all our countrymen, played Hamlet with the same want of spirit, force, and conception, as Mr. Forrest did, on the occasion in question, we would have most certainly decried and derided the absolute FAILURE. We would thank our respectable cotemporary, to point out in the IRISH SHIELD, the article in which he alleges we "censured, without discrimination, American literature." If we had said indeed, that America was two or three centuries behind England, in literature-the social elegancies of life, and the fine arts; and that a millennium might elapse before a BYRON or a MOORE would spring up in American poetry-a GRATTAN or a CANNING in American eloquence-a KEAN in the American drama, or a REYNOLDS in American painting, we candidly admit that we uttered what we really think. American genius must always go to England, for the inspirations that shall irradiate its SECOND-HAND LITERATURE; as the little rivulet can never become as great as its ocean-source. In the whole literary horizon of the United States, there is but one shining star, whose brilliant scintillations are hailed and admired in Europe we need scarcely name WASHINGTON IRVING. The true characteristic, and impressive pictures which the novels of Mr. Cooper exhibit of Indian manners, and nautical scenery, redeem the inelegancy of the dull and denuded style of composition, and the mawkish puerility of the grovelling sentiments that debase them. Irish poetry is too refulgent a luminary in the hemisphere of fame, to require our humble light;— as the names of Ossian, Mc Dairy, Carolan, Swift, Goldsmith, Dermody and Moore, while they encircle it in the splendour of inextinguishable glory, shall stand as fiery pillars in the colossal colonnade of POETIC IMMORTALITY. The talented editor construes

the meaning and import of our remarks on the "USURPER,"as erroneously as if they were as ambiguous as the divinations of the Delphian Oracle. The author of that tragedy, though a gentleman of eminent talent, and fine poetic properties, is as inferior, in the strength and majesty of dramatic genius, to Dryden and Byron, as that female Quixote, the heroine of American literature, MRS. ROYAL, is to Lady Morgan. If we ascribed to Dr. M'Henry, "felicity of diction," and fertility of fancy, it is not to be inferred as a consequent conclusion, that we placed him far above Byron and Ma

turin."

In our life of the gifted, but unfortunate G. F. COOKE, we spoke of Mr. Paine's intrusive annoyance of the tragedian, and his company in such terms of reprehension, as such a violation of etiquette, and good breeding called for. If the editor of the Gazette,. (let us suppose) was enjoying his wine and wallnuts, with two or three friends, in a private room, and an utter stranger, without introduction, invades the social circle, seats himself at table, and then obtrudes questions on his attention, we think he would act as Cooke did, nor would any gentleman reproach him for doing so, with " DRUNKEN BESTIALITY." For our opinion of Mr. Forrest's personation of Lear, a personation that was marked and marred with his habitual inanity and unbroken uniformity, we beg to refer the manly and ingenuous editor of the Gazette to the critique, in this number. Should he honour that article with a notice, he will be so polite as to send us his paper. If Mr. Forrest's histrionic genius is of that pure and refined bullion, which the American critics, with such national enthusiasm, represent, why has it not, ere this, been sublimated in the crucible of Drury-lane, and rendered current coin, in the world of dramatic fame, by bearing the impression of the mint-mark of that theatre? The soaring American Eagle should not fear to pluck bristles from the proboscis of the London lion.

Original Poetry.

SOLITUDE. "Converse with nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd."-BYRON.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH SHIELD:

SIR, I have been so frequently pleased with your interesting topographical descriptions of the scenery of Ireland, that my desire to see my native city, (Kilkenny) shining in the bright pages of the Irish Shield, induces me to solicit from your patriotisin and politeness, the compliment of "A local and Historical description of Kilkenny." If you should consider the following juvenile effusion of an untutored Muse, worthy of being interwoven in the Parnassian wreath, that glitters with the fancy-flowers of the Bard of Quebec, of the elegant Juverna, and the tuneful Carolan-please to inMARY. sert it and oblige

Utica, (N. Y.) 24th November, 1829.

Far from the busy and the gay,
Young Strephon sings his artless lay;-
His oaten reed he oft employs
To sound in sweetest notes the joys

Of Solitude.

No anxious doubts, no jarring strife,
Annoy the quiet of his life;

His days with heartfelt peace abound,
By health and true contentment crown'd

In Solitude.

the generous and noble.minded monarch of En-
glish tragedy, KEAN, erected to the memory of our
immortal countryman, we have to express our
grateful acknowledgements to ADAM KIDD, Esq. of
Quebec.

Non ego te meis Chartis inornatum silebo,
Tolve tuos paliar honores impune, carpere lividas
[obliviones-Horace.

Here have I come, with reverential tread,

O'er many a grave that throngs this sacred spot, To seek thy Tomb, among the unknown dead, Who sleep around-unmourned-and long forgot.

And there's a feeling--such as hearts like mine
Alone may feel-comes trembling through my
frame,

While now I trace the Demon-defac'd line
That bears, OH! COOKE! thy much insulted

name!

But though some impious hand has dared to touch
The marble block thy FRIEND* erected here-
There is a Pyramid to thee-and such

As pale faced envy never can co ̧ne near.
That Pyramid is FAME's-and her great hand
Displays the banner GENIUS o'er thee hung,
When in obedience to her high command,
Nations were captives to thy magic tongue!
Yet, I've a hope, that ere a distant day,

Some spirit prompted by indulgent heaven,
Will safely to that Isle, thy bones convey
Where first the mountain-breeze of life was
given.

And this exotic plantt-this lonely one

Sole verdure, budding on this naked mound,
I will translate-that e'en when I am gone
It may, to deck thy future grave, be found.
Where it will flourish long in honoured rest-
No foot to bruise, or soil its tender frame-
Nor folded reptile slumber on its breast,

But freshly bloom with Cooke's undying name!
QUEBEC, 1829.

* Vide Biography of George Frederick Cooke, in page 331 of this work.

We feel honoured by the correspondence of The only verdure I could find on the hallowMARY, and we hope, that her graceful Muse will often twine flowery garlands for our "Parnassian ed grave of Cooke, was one solitary Shamrock, wreath." We shall, if possible, in our next number, which seemned to have taken shelter, close by the comply with her wishes.-In describing Kilkenny, corner of the monumeut, as the faithful representative of the tragedian's country. Unwilling, that majestic and venerable city of cathedrals, abbeys, castles and towers, which is associated with therefore, that it should be exposed to such wreck and abuse as some foul hands have already inflicthe proudest events in our history, our subject must ted on the monument. I have deprived St. Paul, warm our mind with enthusiasm. Never on the pastoral banks of the Arno, or the Adige did fe- of New-York, of this reepected emblem of St. Pat male beauty appear more attractive, or decked rick, by conveying it to my own temporary abode, in such radiant smiles of seraph-loveliness, as that and shall finally plant it on the green summit of which is reflected in the limpid waves of the Nore, the flowery mantled Slievegallin, in the county of by the fascinating sylphs of Kilkenny. Every Derry, where it may once more, imbibe the dew of Traveller has spoken with rapture of the virtue, a friendlier sky, and spread forth its little blossorn grace, and charms of the ladies of this Ionia of||o the fairy breezes of its native mountains. Ireland.

THE IRISH SHIELD

AND

MONTHLY MILESIAN,

A HISTORIC, LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC JOURNAL.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE REIGN
OF JUGHAINE THE GREAT.-HIS CONQUESTS.-PARTITION OF
IRELAND INTO TWENTY-FIVE MILITARY DISTRICTS FOR HIS SONS.-His death

AND CHARACTER.

JUGHAINE-MORE, or Hugony the Great, of the House of Heremon, having triumphed over his predecessor as related in the last chapter, was solemnly invested with regal authority, at Tara, A. M. 3587. He had a mind enlightened by genius, and elevated to the loftiest aspiration of military fame, by a daring and insatiable ambition. As soon as the rejoicings and festivities of his coronation had subsided, he passed over into Albania with a military force, chastised the Picts, who then had manifested disaffection to his government, and levied large contributions from the entire colony. The fame of his power and exploits, spread over the continent of Europe, so that all the sovereigns, of this epoch, were desirous of his alliance and friendship. He shortly afterwards, with a splendid retinue of knights and minstrels, visited the court of Gaul, where he married the fair Cæsaria, surnamed Crotach, or the lovely, the daughter of the monarch of that country.

When he returned to his kingdom with his beautiful Queen, he summoned the national estates to a solemn convocation at Tara, to whom he announced his projects of conquest, and his plans of enriching the empire by the accession of foreign territory. The devoted senators hailed his propositions with acclamation, and immediately gave the devised measures of the ambitious monarch their sanction. Availing himself of their pliant subserviency, and the ready disposition they had manifested to approve of his designs, no matter how unconstitutional, he boldly exacted from them a most solemn oath, which they swore on the smoking oblation, on the sacred altar of the sun, by the throne of that great deity, "by the moon, stars, and by Neptune-to bear true and undivided allegiance to him and his posterity, in exclusion of the other royal houses of Ireland." VOL. I.-55.